Airbus has announced new delays for its massive A380
superjumbo jet. The French company reported today that it is having continued
problems with wiring installations. The troubled program has already been
plagued by two previous delays and this latest hitch could set back deliveries
by another six months.

The $300 million USD Airbus A380, which is the biggest
airliner ever built, has a three-class seating capacity of 555 people and can
carry a maximum of 800 in all-economy class seating. Airbus has already
received orders from Virgin Atlantic, Qantas, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines,
Korean Air, FedEx and UPS. Reuters reports:

The 12-billion-euro
($15 billion) programme to produce a new class of mammoth plane has already
been hit twice by problems in fitting each jet's 500 km (300 miles) of wiring,
culminating in a 2 billion euro profit warning and management shake-up in June…Assembly
workers in Toulouse, southern France, have been bogged down for a year in
airlines' request for special cabin features and frills that affect each
plane's wiring layout.

Shares of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, were down 3.9%
on news of the announcement. Shares of EADS are down a total of 30% for the
year as it recovers from setbacks caused by an A350 engine redesign and
impending competition from Boeing's stretched 747-8 and yet to be released 787 Dreamliner.

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